About Bob Elkins
In a career spanning four decades, actor Bob Elkins has played a range of diverse characters too numerous to remember, but too compelling to forget. Despite impossible deadlines, sleep-depriving rehearsal schedules and grueling projects that required him to endure hours in rain, snow and scorching heat, his toughest role may have been the one into which he was born and from which he eventually fled, hiding in the spotlight, seeking the approval of strangers.Bob Elkins spent his first five years of life in the tiny mountain town of Mt. Hope, West Virginia, the son of a struggling coal miner, and the only brother of two sisters. One of his earliest memories is that of a real-life drama: a nearby creek overflowing its banks, muddy floodwaters inundating the first floor of his two-story house. Oblivious to the danger at hand, young Bob rode his tricycle through the rapidly rising water in the downstairs hallway, his mother desperately yelling for him to come upstairs. He made it just in time, sadly watching the tricycle, his prized possession, get swept away.In search of better job opportunities and more stable living conditions, Bob's family moved from West Virginia to Muncie, Indiana, where his father went to work for a lawnmower company. The family's economic situation improved slightly, but emotionally, things deteriorated as a result of an invisible wall that his father was slowly and steadily beginning to build around himself.School was a constant struggle, as Bob had difficulty comprehending textbooks and what teachers were writing on the chalkboard. Little did he or anyone else realize it at the time, but he suffered from dyslexia, a learning disability that would not be identified until much later.When Bob was 12, his family moved to Covington, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Ohio. It was in that year that a pivotal and tragic event occurred that haunts Bob even now. One day, without warning or explanation, his father simply walked away from home, never to be seen or heard from again. Understandably, Bob was devastated.Bob fell in love with films because they were an escape. He could escape the fact that his father was gone. He went to movie after movie after movie. He didn't realize it at the time, but he thinks those movies planted the first seed of his interest in acting.To support her fractured family, Bob's mother took a job as a maid, and his sisters went to work part-time. With grades suffering and, for all practical purposes, no parental supervision, Bob became friends with other teenagers who introduced him to crime.He got involved with a kid at school who was a bookie. He was a real genius at math. He figured out the odds. Bob was the front guy. He collected all the bets and paid the winners. He also took care of any disagreements. Non-violently, of course.Bob's career in illegal gambling came to an end when one of his sisters discovered the books he kept, and convinced him that what he was doing was wrong. Bob quit working for his bookie friend, but continued down an equally dangerous path, hanging out with a rough crowd, staying out late at night and stealing things, like boxes of cigarettes. On one occasion, the group stole a car and took it for a joyride. Bob's life of youthful crime came to an abrupt halt when one night, he and his buddies got caught breaking into a coal company office.A police officer arrested them and took them to the police station. He told them what would happen if they was sent ...